tains. Still, though the power of our hero was reduced, his spirit was far from being subdued. He yet possessed the Alps of Wales, in which he remained invincible, because inaccessible; though so closely blockaded, as to cease to be formidable to the neighbourhood.

Here, with a determined bravery, he maintained his position in spite of the whole force of England, till long after the death of Henry. When Henry V, wishing to have his mind and his troops disengaged to chastise the French; and finding Owen and his adherents still in a respectable state of defence, who, in the absence of his troops, might annoy the neighbourhood, condescended to enter into a treaty with him. The tenor of which was a free pardon for him and his followers; and an act of oblivion and general amnesty for the whole kingdom. Whether the hero deigned to negociate is not said; probably his death, which happened about this time (1415), interrupted its completion. If this event* took place, as stated, at the house of his daughter, there is reason to suppose that he did. The treaty was, however, again renewed by the same Minister, Sir Gilbert Talbot, with the son Meredydd ap Owen, February 24th, 1416; and by his closing with the terms, peace was restored to both countries, after an undecisive struggle of fifteen years.

* He died September 20, 1415, aged 61.

I have given a short sketch of the exploits of this extraordinary character,because they are little known; and because the events of the time of Henry the Fourth, as they stand in the English history, are obscure without it.

WE E now entered the far-famed vale of Llangollen or Glyndwrdwy; and rambled for miles upon the banks of its still more celebrated river. The lofty Berwyn stretched its high table land to the right, while the left was formed by gentle slopes and verdant meadows.

As we proceeded, the mountains put on a bolder aspect and the valley, with its river, assumed a more varied shape. No longer the tranquil stream we before admired, it swelled and foamed with all the turbulence of rage, grew impetuous, and forced its passage over its uneven bed in the form of an unbridled torrent. Consistent, however, with its capricious character, it takes a devious course; one while receding from the view and seeming to flow in peaceful silence, at another it appears rolling over shelving rocks, while its wood-fringed margin heightens the effect of the hoary wave.

The road sometimes ascends the acclivity of the mountain, and then suddenly drops into the lengthened vale; while the opposite side of the river consists of moderately wooded hills, that present them

selves in all the luxuriance of forest foliage, interspersed with numerous villas of the gentry, and white-washed cottages of the more humble inhabitants; which give additional charms of life and spirit to the varied landscape. Descending into a rich bottom surrounded by woods, where a crystal stream issued from a fissured rock into a natural bason below, we saw a number of females assembled to wash their linen; which they performed by first laying it to soak in the bason, then beating it with a piece of flat board on a portion of the rock, and rubbing the more delicate articles with their hands in the running stream: then spreading them on the turf to dry. This brought to our recollection a similar mode of washing in a more polished country; which must recur to him, who has ever led his devious steps to the banks of the Seine. Or should it be refused protection under the roof of refinement, it has at least got the sanction of antiquity; it was the custom of ancient Greece.

Homer describes Ulysses and his companions, as seeking in the course of their route

"The cisterns where Phoeecian dames
Wash their fair garments in the limpid streams,
Where gathering into depth, from falling rills,
The lucid wave a spacious bason fills:
The mules unharness'd, range beside the main,
To crop the verdant herbage of the plain.
Then emulous the royal robes they lave,

And plunge the vestures in the cleansing wave:

The vestures cleans'd, o'erspread the shelly sand,
Their snowy lustre whitens all the strand."

РОРЕ.

To persons who have seldom been beyond the precincts of a city, this may appear a very singular custom; but it must be admitted an eligible one, where fuel is scarce; and at least conducive to cleanliness and salubrity.

From hence the boundary to the left opens in the small, but beautiful vale of Egwest; through which a rapid stream from the mountains of Yale, flows into the Dee. The variety of the scenery increased every step as we approached Llangollen. The Dee widens, and irregularly flows over its shelving bed, and exhibits its bottom dry, except at time of flood, in various places. It consists of laminated slate rock, making an angle of about thirty-two with the plane of the horizon; but frequently rising into ridges of a sufficient height to interrupt and divide the stream of the river. It at length forsakes nearly the whole of its bed, and contracting its waters into a narrow channel, throws them with velocity over a ledge of rock through a single arch of the beautiful bridge of Llangollen.

This bridge consists of four pointed, or angular arches, the widest not more than twenty-eight fect in the span. Built by John Trevor, Bishop of St. Asaph, in the year 1346, and is considered by the Welsh, as one of Tri Thws Cymru, or, The three Elegant Things of Wales.